Entering the world of ‘Toddlerisms’

I’ve made my first classic mum mistake and it’s one I shouldn’t have made considering I’ve been told a similar story before. My bff has a gorgeous little boy who is as bright as a button and sounds just as observant as my Little One. He’s a bit older than Holly but a couple of years ago my bff was going through her son’s stash of art work and unfortunately one of the pieces that was made with dried pasta had disintegrated over time. Logically she put it in the bin….the top of the bin however….and guess who discovered it and asked why mummy was throwing his art work away!? Eeek! Well, because we are moving I have been spending some time sorting through lots of our stuff and on the to-do list the other day was the toys (dun, dun, duuuuunnnnn). Well, I found this manky old broken ball that’s meant to be a frog. It’s one of those weird squidgy things that bulges in places when you squeeze it and to be honest, the Little One has never really liked it. So, I put it in the bin and got on with my day until the Little One spotted it and kept whinging heartbrokenly “greeeen, greeeeen, greeeeeen” at me until I understood what she was on about and I consequently ended up fishing it out of the bin. However, she didn’t actually want to comfort “greeeeeen” for his distressing episode and I eventually managed to distract her for long enough to dispose of “greeeeeeeeen” , this time, in the darkest depths of the bin. I will not make this mistake again!!

Speaking of the bin….we have a new “skill”…..the Little One has discovered how to operate the bin (this was probably how she discovered “greeeeeen” in the first place) and finds joy in running off to the kitchen with bits of rubbish and disposing of them for mummy and daddy. Most of the time these items are actually rubbish but on the odd occasion I’ve realised later what she has done and have had to fish things like toy instructions or crayon boxes out of the bin. I’m pretty sure we have actually lost a few items, including one of her forks, to this fate. Or it could be that she’s begun to enjoy hiding toys and books and watching mamma and dada search high and low for said toys. When asked if she knows where the toy or book is, she says “yeah” and wanders around as if she knows what she’s doing….we reckon she takes pleasure in seeing us get increasingly more frustrated, scratching our heads and thinks it’s a great game.

A new skill that I now have to master is the art of keeping a straight face when trying to reprimand my child. I guarantee that most, if not all, parents of toddlers have had to master this skill and if I’m honest I (and probably Mr Little One) thought that I was going to be some sort of tyrant, I was going to be the tough one who would be the task master when it came to discipline but turns out I’m not. I’m a lot softer than even I thought I would be. The other day the Little One threw my phone on the floor and at first I thought she had dropped it while trying to pass it up to me but when it happened a second time I knew what had really happened. So, I was about to utter a few harsh words but before I had even got two words of the reprimand out, she was bustling off down the hallway to hide in the living room. What followed was at least a minute of Mr Little One and I creased with quiet laughter in the hallway while the Little One had concealed herself behind the side of the sofa. She must have been on tenterhooks (ha ha, yeah right!) waiting for her telling off which ended up pretty soft considering I really just couldn’t stop chuckling at the way she had run off. Must try harder!!